the king of birds, for a dark mist thou hast distilled on his arched
head, a gentle seal upon his eyes, and he in slumber heaveth his
supple back, spell-bound beneath thy throbs.

Yea also violent Ares, leaving far off the fierce point of his spears,
letteth his heart have joy in rest, for thy shafts soothe hearts
divine by the cunning of Leto's son and the deep-bosomed Muses.

But whatsoever things Zeus loveth not fly frighted from the voice of
the Pierides, whether on earth or on the raging sea; whereof is he who
lieth in dreadful Tartaros, the foe of the gods, Typhon of the hundred
heads, whom erst the den Kilikian of many names did breed, but now
verily the sea-constraining cliffs beyond Cumae, and Sicily, lie heavy
on his shaggy breast: and he is fast bound by a pillar of the sky,
even by snowy Etna, nursing the whole year's length her frozen snow.

Whereout pure springs of unapproachable fire are vomited from the
inmost depths: in the daytime the lava-streams pour forth a lurid rush
of smoke: but in the darkness a red rolling flame sweepeth rocks with
uproar to the wide deep sea.

That dragon-thing[1] it is that maketh issue from beneath the terrible
fiery flood, a monster marvellous to look upon, yea a marvel to hear
of from such as go thereby and tell what thing is prisoned between
the dark-wooded tops of Etna and the plain, where the back of him is
galled and furrowed by the bed whereon he lieth.

O Zeus, be it ours to find favour in thy sight, who art defender
of this mountain, the forehead of a fruitful land, whose namesake
neighbour city hath been ennobled by her glorious founder, for that on